What reality are you in? No, really?

[Sakka]

When I was fourteen, the optometrist that my family had been going to for years decided that it was time to retire and sold his practice and records to the other optometrist office in town. Approximately, eight months later, I go in to the new place for my yearly eye checkup.

I go through the various tests, noticing that there were not only a LOT more then with the previous eye doc, but that they seemed to be more comprehensive as well. For some of the exams, I needed to surrender my glasses, which promptly disappeared with one of the techs.

I’m still going through one of the preliminary exams when the tech who took my glasses storms back into the room and starts grilling me about my glasses. In particular, she wanted to know just what the was with the lenses. Apparently previous eye doc had done the prescription so that one of the focusing prisms was at ninety-degrees to normal. There were some other oddities with the lenses, but that is the only one I remember almost twenty years later.

The tech was getting more and more frustrated when my answer to every single question was, ‘Previous optometrist was Retired Doc, and I was told that he sold his practice and records to this office.’ I have no idea what Tech was expecting, I was fourteen years old and didn’t know the details of my eyes inside and out. Especially as my eyes were changing often enough that I needed new glasses every other year or so.

The questions about my glasses finally ended when the Dr wandered over to see what the holdup was and overheard me asking the tech what happened to the records from Retired Docs office, and that all of the info she needed about my eyes and glasses should be in said records. :innocent:
After a quick conversation between Dr and Tech, I’m given the last couple preview tests (something about a blinking light and then that evil, evil puff of air into the eye.) Then ushered into the exam room to be subjected to the bright, bright lights of the proper eye exam.

I’ve been going to that same office ever since and the Doc and I banter back and forth during the exam now. Mostly her commenting that I should be bouncing off of things like a human pinball, me commenting that she hasn’t seen me drive.

I have learned a few things about my eyes; I have a lazy eye and only see out of one eye at a time. Average pupil width for people is 3mm, mine is 6mm. Which explains why I have always hated bright daylight and could see in darkness when most people were still stumbling around blind. … As an aside, an easy way to freak people out in the dark is to tell someone which way to go so they don’t walk into any furniture.

[emt_cookies]

Are you sure it's not cysts? My cysts hurt like hell when they burst.

[hornet95]

It sounds like a version of PCOS. I also agree with emt_cookies; could be large cysts bursting.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

I thought about that and said, "But you didn't give me an Ishihara test last year."

Turned out that the clinician who was supposed to have given me the test had forgotten, and covered up by insisting that I'd passed with flying colors, so to speak, and dutifully recording so on my chart. This gave the staff the impression that I had developed severe color-blindness over the course of a few months for no discernable reason. No wonder they were all freaking out.

that's hilarious!

And Sakka... dang. Good thing RetiredDoc is Retired. and you weren't driving yet!

Kisa... geeze. At least you have a chance to return to sanity.

[EricKei]

Speaking of problems with eye docs ~_~... My brother was born with Lazy Eye. We had a guy as our eye doc who was supposedly "the best". He didn't catch my brother's lazy eye until bro was in third grade...and you (in theory) really need to catch it before about age 3 or so to be able to fix it substantially. As a kid, he didn't wear the eyepatch regularly (just ripped it off as soon as he got to school); as a teen, he did manage to self-train the eye somewhat, but you can still tell if you look him right in the eyes. As a result, bro now has one eye which has a contact in it that...we think...allows him to at least have sterescopic vision at a rating better than 20/200. On the upside, due to having used the other eye almost exclusively for 15 years, the good eye is somewhere around 20/10, meaning he can see MORE clearly out of it than most people.

Me, I'm just nearsighted and need specs to bring me to the 20/30ish range >_< Blind as a bat without 'em. Even friends who have strong 'scripts will try them on on occasion and go WTF dude O_O Apparently my lenses would make good backups for the Hubble...

[Sakka]

Speaking of problems with eye docs ~_~... My brother was born with Lazy Eye.

That is one of the big issues mom had with Retired Doc. She kept insisting there was a problem with my eyes, but kept getting brushed off. The weird prism in the one lense was an attempt by Retired Doc to 'pull' my eye into proper position. Gave me blinding headaches for the first week or so until I learned how to look around the prism.

I never clued in that I had a lazy eye until well into my teens. My eyesight was so poor that I had to get close to the mirror and turn my head so I could see that eye clearly. There was also very little change in my peer group growing up, so no one commented about my eyes, other then that I was blind as a bat and had lousy hand-eye coordination. :P

as a teen, he did manage to self-train the eye somewhat, but you can still tell if you look him right in the eyes.

Only training, self or otherwise, was making note of under what conditions I use each eye, and that I unconsciously turn my head slightly so whichever eye I am using will have the best field of view. The off eye provides peripheral vision on the other side of my head, but isn't good for much else. Until I switch focus to it. ... I've made a couple people almost seasick by quickly switching focus between eyes trying to figure out which one provides the best view. Had one friend continously looking over his shoulder wondering what I was looking at. I was annoyed with him that day so didn't let him know I was looking through my other eye until after a few minutes and he started to look a little paranoid.

At the start of each appointment, New Eye Doc comments that I should be bouncing off of door frames and such when walking, until I point out that my vision has been like that as long as I can remember.

And of course, New Eye Doc has to play with the big flat plastic spoon over one eye for a couple minutes just watching how the uncovered eye flicks back and forth as each eye is covered.

Cover left eye -> right eye stays the same -> cover right eye -> left flicks over to look at New Eye Doc -> quickly switches cover to left eye -> right eye flicks to look at New Eye Doc -> Repeat several times until I ask if she's having fun because I'm starting to get a headache.

On the downside, I will never see in 3d.

Even friends who have strong 'scripts will try them on on occasion and go WTF dude O_O Apparently my lenses would make good backups for the Hubble...

One of my best friends growing up is over six feet tall. He tried my glasses once. ... He looked down and said his size thirteen feet looked smaller then his thumbnail.

[EricKei]

Ah yes, You reminded me of something I had inadvertently left out -- I did not wear corrective lenses of ANY kind until 6th grade, when they it had gotten to the point where I HAD to sit in the front row of class and squint to make out those fuzzy marks on the chalkboard -- if I wasn't squinting, or sitting anywhere else, I was lucky to be able to tell that there WERE any marks on the chalkboard at all. Note that I was one of those kids who sat 3 feet from the TV as a 4-year old *because I couldn't tell what was going on if I didn't*... Yup, same "legendary" eye doctor. The school's annual quarter-ass (calling them halfass would be too generous) hearing/eye tests marking me down as Normal on both didn't help, either.

For those who wear specs, my last scrip was ~6.75 in the "good" eye and 7.25 in the other, on a nearsightedness prescription. I don't know if that's magnification or what, but it sure seems that way >_> Both of my eyes, like my brother's, are worse than 20/200 without glasses. I've tried contacts to no avail, even those lightweight samplers they use at the eye doc's office HURT; it felt like several pounds of plastic was pressing down upon my eyes. To give you a good idea: Ya know how, if you're driving during a heavy downpour -- one so bad that it doesn't seem to make a difference whether your windshield wipers are on or not -- lights in particular will all turn "sparkly"? Now apply that effect to everything, illuminated or not, and smear a tub of vaseline over the windshield. That's what the world looks like to me without glasses. x.x

[Seshat]

Did you get those funky lenses and light beams to play with in physics class? If not, go to your local science museum (assuming you have one) and play with them.

Every lens has what's called a 'focal length'. Eyes have lenses....

To grossly oversimplify, assume that light starts out parallel, like =.
When you put light through a lens, it distorts it. No longer parallel, now >.

Now, if your retina (the back of your eye) is exactly at the peak of the >, you have normal vision. If your retina isn't, then everything is blurry because you're either seeing about halfway down the > ... or if your retina is too far back, the light beams have actually crossed, and you're seeing beyond the cross - basically, like x.

That's shortsightedness and longsightedness - where your retina is in front of or behind the perfect focal length for your eye's lens.
The correction for those is to stick another lens in front of your eyes - one where the focal length of THAT lens is either > or < and the combination of the two lenses (your glasses and the natural eye lens) puts the focal length right at your retina.

Astigmatism is where the lens is actually a wonky shape - a barrel-shape - and the eye doctor has to figure out a kind of reverse-barrel-shape for your eyes.

Keratoconus, what I have, is where the cornea (rather than the lens) is the wrong shape.

[EricKei]

i knew *some* of that, but not most of it ^_^ Cool! In other words, having an unusual eyeball shape was a potential cause of near/farsightedness; I recall seeing something about that as a kid.

I neglected this earlier, too, but my bro has Astigmatism in addition to the other fun stuff he's got going on with his eyes. He does wear contacts, tho -- One reeeally powerful in the bad eye, and a placebo lens in his good eye.